Communications Over Various Feeds Electronically for Engagement

Donald Trump–also known as The Molester-In-Chief, Draft-Dodger-In-Chief, Liar-In-Chief, Traitor-In-Chief, and undoubtedly many similarly uncomplimentary epithets by the time our current national nightmare ends–has been nicely trolled by Representative Mike Quigley, D-Ill. His COVFEFE Act–Communications Over Various Feeds Electronically For Engagement–aims to amend the Presidential Records Act to include the social media that Trump so loves to use to troll the rest of us. The name of the act ridicules a stupid Trump tweet–see the picture above. The Presidential Records Act defines the requirement that US presidential records be preserved. Trump loves to communicate via social media, and also loves to flat-out deny ever having said things that he manifestly did, in fact, say–often on social media. Quigley’s COVFEFE Act would define social media posts as presidential records, which would prevent Trump from deleting the evidence of his lies–at least the lies that he told on social media. The Republican-controlled House of Representatives (roughly the American equivalent of the French Assemblée Nationale) will almost certainly block it, but in the meantime: the Troller-In-Chief has been nicely trolled. You can read about the COVFEFE Act here–relevant French and English vocabulary explained below.

English notes

draft dodger: the draft is the mechanism for summoning people to obligatory military service. A draft-dodger, then, is a person who illegally avoids joining the armed forces (Merriam-Webster). Trump famously avoided military service during Vietnam by claiming to have flat feet, and then announced that he would be the most physically fit president ever.

The Draft-Dodger-In-Chief wants to start a war – then his kids should be first in line to enlist and follow his orders. pic.twitter.com/W0UHrbVHBT

le traiteur: this is one of the more puzzling words for newly-arrived Americans in France. It appears all over Paris, most visibly on the signs of Chinese restaurants. To us, it looks like the English word traitor. However, it means something like “someone who sells prepared foods.” WordReference.com defines it as caterer, but as far as I can tell, it’s a lot more general than that.

Back to our traiteur, it comes from a common literary meaning .
7 Traiter quelqu’un meant to receive the person at home for a meal . Come on home and let’s have a dinner, but in upper class and older time . Un traiteur cooks the meal, or a part of the meal, in his workshop and delivers it in your home . Or you can go to the shop, take it and bring it back yourself . In some cases le traiteur and his staff does everything, decorating the tables and even the room (like a public hall you rented for the occasion but also your wide dining room), heating and serving the whole meal, then emptying and cleaning .

To add more confusion you also have “un trait de crayon”, a pencil line, as “tracer un trait” (Metaphorically “tirer un trait sur une histoire”also means to put a definitive end to a love story for instance, or a career, and decide to forget it henceforth) .
And – my favorite- don’t forget the verb “traire”, to milk an animal because it makes funny confusions too . Just see : “La traite des Blanches” and “la traite des vaches”. The former, linked to my n° 4, is the white women slave trade, now related to international prostitution networks, while the latter is innocently the daily milking of our cows .

The poor guy’s parents couldn’t afford all tenses . Hey you learnt a lot of things in French hermetism !
To not overwhelm you I restrained the flood . There is for instance “traiter un sujet”, meaning writing a thesis about a question or giving a lesson or a lecture about it . “Un trait de flèche”,”un trait d’arbalète”, a bow or crossbow shot, often reduced to “un trait” : “Un trait lui fit rendre l’âme” (he was killed by an arrow) . Un trait shot by un traître of course, while le traiteur trayait les vaches .

Oh I forgot a very common one : “les traits du visage”, facial features . “Elle a des traits délicats”. And when exhaustion is visible on a face we say “Il a les traits tirés” . Here “tirés” means “pulled”like by a weight . Confusing because in “tirer un trait” as I wrote above “tirer” means to draw a line . If you add a bow it’s a top-notch mess since “tirer” can also mean to shoot . So “tirer un ou des traits” can be done with a pen, a bow or exhaustion . As we used to say in French “Put all this in your pipe and smoke it” .